We're excited to release our second Annual Report, which summarises our work through 2020 - and what a year it was!
From launching our website and social media in January and adjusting to COVID-19 and supporting the community during lockdown, to employing new staff, developing new initiatives and forming new partnerships - 2020 had it all!
The full Report can be found in the Reports Section on our About Us page
The report features work across four workstreams: Be Active, Eat Well, Healthier Weight and Substance Use through a variety of approaches including policy, workforce training, grant making, research, advocacy and new campaigns as well as support for the community during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and a new partnership to deliver Social Prescribing locally.
From an organisational perspective, the Commission relocated from a temporary office which could only accommodate some of the team, to the newly renovated Perkins Suite on the second floor of the KGV Clubhouse. The team also grew by four to 13 and now more of the team are directly employed by the Commission than are seconded from the States. Our website and social media channels were launched in January 2020 providing vital ways to engage and involve the public.
The pandemic shone a light on how fragile people’s physical and mental health can be and the importance of creating living conditions which enable us to be healthy. Our work during the first COVID-19 wave and lockdown was wide ranging and included deploying staff to coordinate contract tracing and support vulnerable families. New partnerships were formed (e.g., donating fresh veg and fruit to all Guernsey Welfare Service food back provisions) and a diverse range of new initiatives and campaigns on nutrition, physical activity and substance use to support the community through self-isolation, working and schooling at home and difficult economic times were created.
I’m very grateful to the hard work of our team in 2020. We had to be agile and quickly shift what we were doing and how we were doing it to support the community’s health during and after lockdown. We’re delighted that we can now continue to deliver our objectives with an even stronger justification and widespread acknowledgement of how collective action from all sectors of the community is needed improve our health.